The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode - #369 - Max Martin

TRANSCRIPT

Max Martin
We believe that the, you know, the, the athletes as an individual should be able to access the same therapies and substances that any regular person should be as part of their training. And under the right medical and clinical supervision, we have now shown through Enhanced Games that you can make it safe.

43% of Olympians that u- use to ad- like admit to using banned substances, and 1% is getting caught. You should assume that, you know, particularly the records, those are the people that haven't gotten caught. The system has just shown over the past decades even that it treats different cases very differently.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melonie Avalon Biohacking Podcast, where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying herein.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melonie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. Oh my goodness, friends, what an eye-opening, paradigm-shifting, controversial conversation you're in for today. It was such an honor to sit down with Max Martin today. He is the co-founder of the Enhanced Games, and he is doing incredible things at 29, yes 29, and has brilliant insight when it comes to the Olympics, athletic performance, world records, supporting your body for longevity, all the things. I was so honored to attend the Enhanced Games, where athletes try to achieve their true potential and break world records while being on medically supervised performance-enhancing drugs. It is an entirely new way of looking at sports, and I can't wait to hear what you guys think about all of the ideologies that we discuss in today's episode.

I definitely recommend the Enhanced supplement line as well. Like we talk about in this episode, their Stronger is incredible for recovery. If you don't improve your lift in 90 days, you get your money completely back. And their Longer is basically all of the ingredients I would put into a longevity blend. It's incredible. You can get 25% off with the coupon code Melonie at melonieavalon.com/enhanced. In today's episode, we talk about so many things, including the true future of athletic performance, problems with the Olympics, the shocking role of compensation when it comes to athletes, the first time that performance-enhancing drugs were used in the Olympics, hint, it is a wild story, the future of longevity medicine, including peptides, hormones, longevity supplements, all the things, and so much more.

We also got into some really esoteric contemplations when it comes to jealousy, envy, status in society, and how we look at the things that we put in our body. The show notes for today's episode will be at melonieavalon.com/enhancedgames. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know in my Facebook group, IF Biohackers: Intermittent Fasting + Real Foods + Life. Comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love. And then check out my Instagram Find Me Friday announcement post, and again, comment there to enter to win something that I love. All right, I think that's all the things. As a brief reminder, you can get 25% off the Enhanced Games supplement line, including their Stronger, which if you don't improve your lift in 90 days, you get your money back, and their Longer, which is basically the ideal longevity supplement blend.

Melanie Avalon
And you get so many things at an incredible price. For that, just go to melonieavalon.com/enhanced and use the coupon code Melonie for 25% off.

And now without further ado, please enjoy this fantastic conversation with Maximilian Martin. Hi, friends. Welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I am about to have. It is a long time coming, and so here's a backstory on today's conversation. And I will say, this might be one of the more ... And it doesn't even need to be, but it might be one of the more controversial episodes I've had on this show, so we can talk about that. In any case, go back to like June 2024, and I was actually re-listening to this episode last night. But I listened to an episode on Joe Rogan with the founders of an upcoming event called the Enhanced Games, and I was completely fascinated by the concept, which was basically seeing if human beings could break world records by allowing medically supervised performance-enhancing substances, and we'll talk all about that. And even at the time I was like, "Oh, I should try to reach out to them and get them on the show." And then fast-forward to spring of this year, so spring 2026, I actually received an invitation to attend the games. And I was obviously thrilled by that, and I was also very intrigued by what I was reading about the perceptions and the opinions surrounding everything. Because in the biohacking world, we are all about trying all the things, enhancing ourselves, all in the name of longevity, and there doesn't seem to be any judgment surrounding that. And yet when it was put into this sports context, I was surprised to see that people seemed to be debating the, the ethics or if this was a good thing or a bad thing, and even in the biohacking sphere as well. So I was very, very, um, intrigued, e- excited, curious. I was-- I decided to go, even though you guys know I am not good at traveling. I did it back-to-back with the Biohacking Conference, and it, I, it was outside in Las Vegas heat, so I did that as well. Um, but I had the time of my life. It was incredible. And I have so many questions about all of it and the future of it and what it means for human performance, human longevity, all the things. And that's why I am absolutely thrilled to be here today with the co-founder and CEO Maximilian Martin. He goes by Max. Um, he has a background in, um, investment banking, entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial leadership, and digital asset spaces as the CEO at Bitfield. And like I said, now the CEO and co-founder of the Enhanced Games. So we're gonna tackle all the things, no pun intended. And Max, thank you so much for all that you do, and thank you so much for being here.

Max Martin
Melonie, thank you so much for having me on the show. It's a, it's a real pleasure to be here.

Melanie Avalon
So I, well, I definitely want to hear your personal story of what... Actually, yeah, we'll start with that, and then I, I have a kind of funny fun fact for you. But, um, yeah, so your personal story, so your background. When did your interest in this whole field start? Yeah, when did you first hear about the ga- like, the concept of the games? Like, how did you first get involved?

Max Martin
Yeah, so it's, it's a great question. So my interest, I think, uh, is twofold when it comes to Enhanced as a business. One is on the sporting side, and one is on the enhancement side. And in the summer of 2023, Aaron D'Souza, with the original idea about the Enhanced Games, approached Christian Angermayer, my co-founder and now chairman of Enhanced, and myself with just the idea of looking at the Olympics and challenging a system that's more than 130 years old and allowing athletes to finally take performance enhancements, just like actors are able to take it, as you said before, the biohacking community is taking it. But for some reason, we've always held back on letting athletes take advantage of enhancements, where they're actually the people that need it most because being a professional athlete on that level is so taxing on the body, and there are so many therapies that we can utilize for athletes to make that strain less harmful for them and equip them better, you know, to extend their careers, let them recover quicker, protect themselves better from injuries.

So he came to us with the ideas, "How about we do the Olympics, but we allow athletes to take performance enhancements?" And Christian and I, we, you were mentioning this before, we had a company together before in the Bitcoin mining space that we founded in 2020, sold it to a, to a data center business after a few years, and we were working on a few different projects at the same time, and we, we fell in love with the idea. It's something so, you know, like, much aligned with how Christian and I think about the future, that science is gonna elevate how we all can live and how we can impact our bodies and, and make us age more gracefully and make us enjoy life more as we have bodies that help us go through it. And so that's how I got first involved with it. And then I think on the, on the, on the enhancement side itself, I then quickly realized I never want to be in a position where I speak to an athlete about what it means to be enhanced without ever having done any enhancements myself. So a few weeks in, I started with my own enhancement protocol for the first time, and it's been life-changing to me. And so that's, that's when my obsession for the subject matter really started because I saw just firsthand the impact that it had on my life. Since then, you know, on the life of my parents, friends of mine, their families, but then also now since we've been through the first games, so many athletes and thousands of consumers that we're serving now every single day. And so that's why I'm, I'm so overall obsessed because I think this is something, when done right, so powerful for an individual's life. And so we're, we're out here trying to change the life of millions of more people for the better.

Melanie Avalon
Oh my goodness, this is incredible. Yeah, like I said, and then you were just commenting on as well, I, I really, really am fascinated about the, the... Like, if you just step back and the esoteric question, and this is the question I would ask all the biohacking people because, like I said, I was surprised that some people were really raising eyebrows and I was like, how, how is it any different from supporting, you know, taking these substances for longevity?

Like, I, like, how... Like, why? Like why is it a problem in one context and not another?

Max Martin
No, I think you're, you're hitting the nail on the head, if you want to stay on that topic for a second. You know, like, what... If you even go beyond or take even a step back, you know, like, enhancements have always been a part of sports, and that's not just to Olympic sports, but to any sport. We have this in basketball, the NFL, we have it in tennis. Every sport there is, you have... Or in most sports there are anti-doping regulations. And when those doping regulations exist, there's also people that choose to cheat, and that's what's really the problem.

So there is a lot of studies that showcase, and the one that I like quoting the most is that 43% of Olympians actually admit to using banned substances, while only 1% is getting caught. So when you're actually looking at the playing field, it's not fair. People have chosen since the beginning of time to cheat and enhance, and they will continue to do so no matter what the regulations are. And we, we look at these people and we, you know, instead of looking at a person like Lance Armstrong, who, you know, had cancer and came back and won seven Tour de France titles because enhancements are part of it. Instead of celebrating that because it's such an incredible achievement, we kind of depict it as being something close to like what we do as criminals. And I think, I think that's insane. And as you say, you know, you look at Hollywood, and you look at, for example, all the Marvel superheroes, you know. Do we think people like Hugh Jackman look the way that they do at their age because they only eat red meat and sleep eight hours a night? Or because, you know, we, people like that in the acting space can, can access those enhancements. And so that's why I feel like also, like, looking at banned substances regulations, it's a, it's a list of substances that breezes every year. So if you look at, for example, the early 2000s, there were limits on caffeine, on how much caffeine you could take. It's like, compared to what you drink with four cups of espresso, if you took four cups of espresso prior to a race and you got tested right afterwards, you would have considered to have been doping because of increased caffeine levels. Now, that rule doesn't exist anymore today, but it just shows you how, how arbitrary those rules have been and still are. And, um, we just don't believe in that. We believe that the, you know, the, the athletes as an individual should be able to access the same therapies and substances that any regular person should be as part of their training. And under the right medical and clinical supervision, we have now shown through Enhanced Games that you can make it safe.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. It's... Okay, I did not know that about the caffeine. And even like with, like, the caffeine, so we know like pe- some people are slow caffeine metabolizers, others are fast. So even if you had some arbitrary amount, it, it would, it wouldn't even matter because it would, like, it would affect people differently.

And then even like with, like, hormones, like why is melatonin, like why can you buy that over the counter but you can't buy other hormones? Like, everything is so... I just like question the whole system. Question about... And I don't know if this is known. Do people suspect... So the current world records in all of the other Olympic events, do people suspect, like, how many of those were actually enhanced? Under the radar?

Max Martin
It's a very good question. I mean, like, if you have studies that show, like, that 43% of Olympians that you- used to, uh, admit to using banned substances, and 1% is getting caught, you should assume that, you know, particularly the records, those are the people that haven't gotten caught. And there's countless stories of people, you know, getting tested positive but it get put under the rug. So one thing that was huge in 2023, basically the entire Chinese swimming team that was swimming at the Tokyo Olympics got tested positive, but it got put under the rug. And the rumors say that, you know, it's mostly because one of the biggest Olympic sponsors is one of the biggest sponsors of Team China. And so that's just insane, right?

The medals are still out there, and, uh, even though they've gotten tested positive, they point it towards food contamination in the training camp. But it's, it's crazy. And so there's countless stories of cover-ups, and I think, you know, that's why, that's why you will never know, unless they test someone positive. I think one thing that was also very interesting to see is, like, for example, in tennis, when Jannik Sinner got tested positive and, uh, and, and, like, the systems deal with it differently depending on the person that it is. Jannik, for example, that year, I think it was in 2024 when he served his ban, he didn't miss one Grand Slam. There was a female tennis player and she got tested positive for the exact same substance that Jannik was tested positive for, and, uh, she received a four-year ban. So it's, it's, it's crazy and you, you never can really tell because the system has just shown over the past decades even that it treats different cases very differently.

And so w- I guess we'll, we'll have to trust the system if we would like to, that what is out there right now is considered to be, you know, non-enhanced records.

Melanie Avalon
Do you know, speaking of the system and the history, do you know what is considered to be probably the first documented use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Olympics? It's a, it's a hysterical story. I don't know if you know it.

Max Martin
I'm not sure. I, I would, I, I would probably answer it differently than the story that you have in mind, which is one that I'm likely not to know. But, like, even if you look at the ancient Olympics and you see, like, what people were doing before they went in, they went, like, in and ate, like, boiled testicles, for example. They got drunk before they competed, especially, like, in wrestling and fighting. People were looking to enhance themselves in any way, shape, or form.

And we're doing it in other areas as well. Look at just equipment. If I look at running shoes and the technology, is that enhancement? Because people today, you know, run with better shoes than they did, you know, 30 years ago. Uh, if I look at bikes today and cycling, these bikes today are very, very differently set up, uh, aerodynamics, weight distribution, materials that they're using, et cetera, than the bikes from, like, many dec- like, decades ago as well. So, like, I think it's so natural for us as humans to constantly look on how we can be the best. Like, this competitive gene that we have in us is so natural and so... That's, uh, sorry, long way and I've, I've, I've gotten off topic a little bit, but, like the first one, like, from the ancient Olympics, but which, which one are you thinking about?

Melanie Avalon
Oh, I, I'll tell you, but I, actually, I was gonna ask you, um, like, what did you think the ancient Olympians would think of the enhanced games? Like, would they see it as what they were actually aspiring to?

Max Martin
I think, look, they didn't have any, any, you know, banned substances regulations back in the day. So, like, for them, I think they were doing everything that they possibly could.

And so I think that's, they, they were, they were living by those rules. They just didn't have, you know, the same therapies and drugs available that we do have today.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Okay. So have you heard of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic marathon?

Max Martin
Ah, I think I do, but please refresh my mind for the audience.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. So I actually did an entire episode on my show called The Mind Blown podcast, 'cause I, it's just so... I mean, it's not funny 'cause these people were not having a fun time, but I think it's funny now. So, like, the, basically the guy who organized it, he wanted to test the results of purposeful dehydration. He thought that that would help their performance, and it was, the marathon was set up, um, let's see, 1904, it was, like, 90 degrees, super hot. There were 32 athletes that started. Only 14 finished.

They only had one water station at mile 12, and they even, like, withheld water from people. And then like, all of the people that ran, so let's see, one of the guys, so Fred Lorz, he, he got very, he got heart, he got severe cramps, then he got into a car and rode 11 miles, got back out, crossed the finish line. They thought he won. Celebrate, celebrated him. And then they were like, "Oh, no, he didn't win." The guy who actually won, let's see, they had... His, so his trainers had refused to let him drink, and then they actually gave him egg whites, strychnine, strychnine, it was a stimulant, and brandy. And he was delirious. His winning time, which was 3 hours 28 minutes and 53 seconds, is the slowest Olympic marathon winning time in history. It was basically, one guy got, like... Well, sorry, j- just one-

Max Martin
That's a proper enhancement in a car.

Melanie Avalon
I know. I know. We got, we got the cars, we got the brandy, we got the dehydration. One guy, um, got sick and he, like, got hungry, so he went into an orchard, ate rotten a- apples, took a nap, and he still finished fourth. So, like, things have changed a bit since then.

But yeah, okay, so, so bringing it back. So I, so many questions about the actual event. Actually, wait, and w- I'll definitely circle back to... Actually, we can talk about it now, 'cause you mentioned the, the equipment and, like, cars, shoes, bikes, et cetera. So you guys had in your swimming, you allowed these swimsuits that are banned. Is that... Can you talk a little bit about that? And, 'cause I, I was, I was hearing some people who were saying, "Well, if it's true ultimate potential of human performance, then you shouldn't allow anything that's not, like, the human body." So what do you think about the equipment aspect and, yeah, what were the swimsuits? Was there anything else like that that you guys used?

Max Martin
No, it's a, it's a very good question. So the swimsuits, why did we bring them back? So that actually originates from the first world record that we broke, which was a year prior to the games. That was in 2025 in February, where we did, um- A much smaller event with just two athletes. It was James Magnussen, our first athlete, and Christian Golomeov, our second athlete, and they both set out on a personalized protocol for them to see if they could break the world record in a 50 meter freestyle. And at the time, the previous world record was set in 2009 by Cesar Cielo, Brazilian swimmer, and at the time, World Aquatics, so the official swimming events, were allowing those swimsuits. And so because when we did the event in 2025, that was still the f- fastest time ever swam in the 50 freestyle, and it was swam in a suit, we wanted to make it like for like, in terms of, like, all of the, the equipment, in that case, the suit, was available so that we have literally a like for like comparison in the times that our athletes swam. And so Christian, at the time, uh, swam a time that was quicker, broke the world record, and he was in a suit because it was the same as Cesar back in the day swam that world record in a suit. And then afterwards, we asked ourselves the question, do we wanna keep the suits or do we wanna return to, like, the same standards that we have in other international swimming events? And we decided to stick with the suits because our swimmers, they just love them so much, and they were really feeling like superheroes, and they were, they were loving them so much.

And so we said, "Okay, why don't we just keep the suits as well?" And that's why we decided to keep them. But yes, the suit does help. The suit helps with, like, how the athletes sit on top of the water, and also helps with the streamline in the water. And so there are certain benefits definitely that come from it. There's even some people, you know, that go as far as water temperature, salt percentage in the water. There's, like, so many things because obviously in salt water you float better. There are so many other things that you could even consider from an enhancement perspective. But other than the suits, we go by the exact same regulations that, uh, World Aquatics goes by, which is the governing body for international swimming.

Melanie Avalon
Did you guys... So because at the actual event, the world record was broken again by, well, yeah, I guess again, by Christian, correct? At the, um, for s- the, and it was the last one.

Did you guys set him up as the last event because you thought he had the best chance of breaking a record?

Max Martin
Yes. So we were actually, we were, we were very mindful about this. So, and I was very vocal also about how many records I thought we'd break. In total, I thought it was gonna be five.

And, uh, we wanted to open in the weightlifting with Beatriz. Beatriz is one of our weightlifters. She's from Dominican Republic, and she actually last weekend broke a world record. But at the games, yeah, she already broke a record in training, and so we wanted to open the evening with a record.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, open and close.

Max Martin
Yeah. So that's why Beatriz was one of the first athletes to, to go out after, after the performance of Alan Walker. But unfortunately, Beatriz injured herself in competition, and so, um, that didn't happen.

And then we thought we'd had two more weightlifting records, uh, which would've been in the earlier stages of the night. One from Arly Mendez, who is, like, the most decorated weightlifter we have. He's like incredible international athlete. He also broke the record in training already. But Arly as well injured himself in competition, his hand, so he had to withdraw, too.

And then we had two more records, one from Bode, another weightlifter, who was very well prepared, but just live sports, it's just very, you know, sometimes difficult to calculate. And Thor, who also wasn't able to do it.

But then we wanted to finish the night on a record again, and Christian was swimming extraordinary in training. So was Ben Proud, by the way, and that's why we had the 50 freestyle.

That's, like, our favorite event. It was the first record that we've broken that we wanted to finish the night on.

Melanie Avalon
Gotcha. Yeah, 'cause I was, I was talking with somebody, actually a fellow attendee, and they were saying, they were saying that the odds of the one record being broken being the last one was, like, insane.

I was like, well, but maybe, maybe they kind of really thought he would break one.

Max Martin
No. We, no, we, we, we knew Christian had it in him and, uh, he delivered that night and we were incredibly proud to have seen him perform so well.

And it was so many records as well that we just, like, touched, like we were so close to them. But at the end of the day, one thing, like, the world records is one thing, but the other thing is, like, the personal bests, like personal records. Because breaking a world record is... There's so much more to it than just enhancements. You could give me all the drugs under the sun, I'm never gonna be able to run even a good high school time on the track. I just don't have it in me. I'm not an athlete. I haven't dedicated my lifetime to a sport. I'm not talented enough. No matter how hard I work, a world record is never gonna be in reach for me. But what is in reach for me is becoming the best version of myself, depending on what I am trying to achieve. And so across the 42 athletes that we had, we've seen 21 personal bests that night, and that for me is the even bigger testament around the fact that enhancements not just... They, well, first of all, it can help you become the best version of yourself, but then also help you become healthier and, and you can do it in a way that's safe. And so that's just, like, for me, even more important, those 21 personal bests across the 42 athletes to comparing that to the world records.

Melanie Avalon
And when people are, like, putting these people down for being on these performance enhancing substances, I'm like, well, you think you could break a world record? Like, even on all the things? I mean, goodness, I couldn't, like, do any of it.

But speaking of them being... How common is that for athletes to get injured? Would that at all be an artifact of them being pumped up a bit, or is, is that normal?

Max Martin
No, it happens all the time with athletes, and where injuries are particularly important in... Well, to prevent injuries is particularly important in training, and that's where we've actually seen the biggest benefits of enhancements for our athletes, was in the recovery and injury prevention. And so because when you get enhanced, you're less likely, like with your ligaments and all of these things, to get injured, and that mean-- And on the recovery side, what we've seen across the athletes is that they could do more training sessions in shorter periods of time.

And so not just can you increase the volume on training, but also the intensity of it Because you're less likely to get injured. And that had actually the biggest impact on our athletes from an enhancement perspective, that they could train more intense more often in preparation for the event, leading to better performance.

Melanie Avalon
Wow, okay. And I was gonna ask that earlier because you were mentioning the recovery, and I think people... when people think enhancements, they think so much of just, like, you know, you know, pumping you up, but the recovery aspect is what is really, really key here.

Max Martin
That's what's really key, yes, because imagine we would want to have everyone look like a bodybuilder, and you line up, you know, eight bodybuilders on the track to race against each other. That's, I think, would be certainly very entertaining to watch, but I don't think you'd see particularly fast times.

In swimming also, what we, what is a big thing in swimming is you wanna sit, and that's why the suit is helpful, but, like, what you wanna do in swimming is you actually wanna sit as m- much on top of the water as you can. So your feet in swimming, in the freestyle for example, are actually not there that much to propel you forward, but rather to keep you on top of the water so you have less resistance as your arms pull you through it. And so if you are a, just a body of pure dense muscle, you're sinking quicker than if you're not as lean, for example. So for the swimmers, there's... it, it's, it's very helpful actually to not be as lean as possible because it helps them with the flotation as well. And so you don't wanna be too muscular as well because, A, you sink, but secondly, it impacts your mobility, it impacts your technique, it impacts the way your body moves through you- the water. And for people that have been, for example, Christian has been to four Olympic Games. His professional career before Enhanced spanned 14 years. He knows every fiber, every s- like, little tiny puncture of his skin on how that moves through the water. If your body composition changes too much, that's very different. The feel for the water becomes very different. And so these are all the, like, secondary impacts that enhancements have on athletes. So the biggest one is actually, yeah, on making more with the physiology you have and therefore recovery and injury prevention were the biggest ones that we saw helping the athletes perform better.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. Yeah. I was, I was blown away .

So I have not... I haven't... Well, I, I went to the Olympics when I was, like, six when they were in Atlanta, but besides then, I haven't really been... Like, this was my first time really being at any sort of sporting event, like, of this nature. So everything was blowing me away . And when the swimmers, like, started, I was like, whoa, I couldn't even, like, catch them on my camera. They were insane.

Max Martin
They're much faster in real life than they are on TV. It's insane.

Melanie Avalon
Whoa . It was like they're gone.

Max Martin
You have to actually jog. Like, when you're next to them in the pool, you actually have to, like, do a light jog to keep up with them. Like, just regular walking is not cutting it.

Melanie Avalon
It's wild. I am having, like, flashbacks right now. It was incredible. Do the athletes self-select all of their protocols and training, or was it standardized, or how did that work?

Max Martin
It's a very good question. So at the end of the day, they do self-select, but not based on what they want.

Like... Well, wait, let me say this differently. They c- they, the athletes has the ultimate choice on what they want to take or want to not take. What we've done is we've set up the Enhanced medical program, which was actually an IRB-approved clinical study. This means that we ran a study that was approved by the highest international and clinical and ethical standards that there are. And so as part of that study, when we did the protocols for the athletes, the first thing that we did is, like, very, very detailed baseline assessments of the athletes. So we did all the bi- like, biomarkers, blood, urine, saliva. We looked at images of the heart, images of the brain, other organ imaging, musculoskeletal analysis, to really have a very holistic and fulsome understanding of the athlete and their personal physiology. That's the first thing. The second thing is we put that into perspective with what the particular event is that the athlete is doing. Just think about it like this. When you run the 100 meters or you run the marathon, there are two very different skill sets required to win in each, therefore also two very different protocols to help you excel at that. So that's really what informed then the personalized protocol making for each athlete, so no athlete was on the same protocol. And, uh, what we've seen as well is with the athletes is just some people respond to certain substances better like others. Just like the example that you did with caffeine before. And so some people are like... What I always say is, like, in more simple terms is some people like milk, others are lactose intolerant. So really who the athlete is an individual and what their specific event is define the recommendations of protocol for the athletes. At the end of the day though, the athlete had the ultimate choice on which of those recommended substances they wanted to take or not.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Amazing.

Yeah, I actually met one of the, like, one of the medics the night before at, like, one of the opening parties and it w- it's so interesting to think about, like, everything you don't see. Like, we just see the highlights. We see the moment of them doing, you know, the, the competition, but we don't see all the training, the recovery. We don't see the, the medics with them, you know, during the event. So yeah, it's, it's so interesting to think about, think about all of that.

Max Martin
I know, it's been crazy, and the stats that we've been seeing, like for example, just a simple one as well, the resting heart rates for the roster of athletes on average drop by around 10 BPMs once the athletes have gotten enhanced. Their overall fitness and health has improved so incredibly much and the, um, like, the athletes are telling me they've never felt better in their entire lives.

Melanie Avalon
Will they... Do they have to stay on all of that to keep feeling that way, and if they go off, will it feel worse, or will it g- just go back to how they were?

Max Martin
Yeah. So the, the way that I describe it is, like, traditional medicine is like something's wrong with you and you're trying to fix it, so you're trying to get closer to your baseline. The space of enhancement is you're already close to or at around to your baseline, and through enhancements you can tap into a space of beyond, a pocket of potential that you otherwise couldn't tap into. And so you're becoming, you know, more. Once you get off of enhancements, you return back to your baseline.

And so now the athletes, if they had, like, their come down protocols, and many of them are off a protocol now completely. It's been, like, roughly two months now, one and a half months Since the games and they're now like returning to their b- the more of their baseline physiology, but they still, you know, like from being enhanced as well, you become so much more mindful about your nutrition, your exercise routines, uh, your sleep patterns, et cetera, that those other effects are still sticking with them. And I see this self with me and myself as well when I'm off a protocol versus on a protocol. Like my natural behavior towards other things in life changes and those habits, et cetera, stay with me, which is the overall positive impact on myself.

Melanie Avalon
It's so true. I, I think that really captures to me what the, like, the biohacking movement is because it's like I start experimenting with these different things that make me feel so much better and then it's just a snowball effect 'cause then you wanna do all the other things and yeah, I, I, I think it's great.

Max Martin
Exactly. You cut out sugar, you don't drink, you go to bed regularly, like at the, at the same time every night.

It's like so many spillover effects of what it means to be enhanced. So living enhanced for me is therefore like much more than just taking substances. It's about how you treat your body, how mindful you are about other things in life that you're doing and, um, that's I think the, the great overall effect of having that mindset about how do you treat your body the best way possible.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, honestly, and like with this podcast I love ... 'Cause each episode is usually something else that, you know, something different in the biohacking world and it's like some people just have to find their gateway thing and then once they're in, then they wanna do like all the things.

For the, for the actual athletes that did participate, how did it work? Was there like a casting call and also were these athletes current or are a lot of them kind of past their prime? Yeah, so yeah, all of that.

Max Martin
Great question. So it was an invitation only event. We had no qualifiers and so it's been a combination of both us reaching out to athletes and just athletes reaching out to us. In the beginning, say like two, two and a half years ago when we just started, we were very proactive with the outreach. We spoke to a ton of athletes, their agents, coaches, et cetera. Since we broke the first world record in 2025, that has shifted significantly and tons of athletes have been reaching to out us, like out to us instead. Since the first games now, that's been completely overwhelming.

So I have like in my DMs on Instagram Olympic gold medalist world record holders think about it. They, they've reached out to us so that, that has just over time has developed a lot. In terms of what caliber of athletes did we have, it was a combination of both. So we had on the one hand side athletes that were like at their absolute prime, so for example, a Ben Proud and a British swimmer who had just been, you know, second at the Olympics in Paris, second at the World Championships in 2025. Ben was like in the prime of his career when he made the move and there's many more of them like Ben. But then we also had other athletes, like for example, Megan Romano. Megan was a swimmer from the US. She was a two-time world champion when she was in her prime, but she actually came out of a nine-year-long retirement. And so Megan at the games, she was 34 when she competed and she set a personal best that night and beating her 21-year-old self, so 13 years apart since her previous personal best when she was also a two-time world champion and that's just so powerful, so incredible at 34 to be better than your 21-year-old two-time world champion self.

Melanie Avalon
I was so excited to see Megan because she went to UGA and like half my family went to, goes to UGA. So a- and another piece ... Okay, so this is something because like I said, I, I talked to so many people leading up to the games, during the games, after the games, just hearing people's opinions and a common theme, 'cause I have quite a few athlete friends and a lot of them said a similar thing which was the prize money they said was a really big deal because I, I was blown away to learn the stats about the Olympics, like how much the Olympics make versus ... Yeah, so can you talk a little bit about that?

Like in the traditional Olympics, like how much money do the, does the Olympics make and how much of that do the athletes actually get?

Max Martin
Yeah. So the, the Olympics is a commercial engine like there's few others. The Olympics make per Olympic cycle that includes the Winter and the Summer Games, billions in sponsorships, billions in media rights sales, but the Olympics they don't pay athletes. What's very interesting as well is that the president of the Olympics, Kirstie Coventry, an Olympian and gold medalist herself actually came out just after the games, I think it was Monday or Tuesday, and she said in an interview that she doesn't believe in paying athletes which was wild to me because yeah, that, that, that just look, it wasn't received very well by the athlete community to say the least.

The Olympics were built on the spirit of amateur sport, spirit of representing your country, doing it all for honor, doing it all for fame and no money needs to be paid to figure out who's the best. That was like from back in the day that idea in like the late 1800s when the Olympics were brought back to life. Completely obviously detached from today's world, right? When you look at the NFL who pays a certain money of how much they're making to the athletes. Literally every other sport the Olympics is checking so much behind because they don't compensate athletes. The only way that an athlete gets paid is by either then, well their national governing body or if they have sponsors. The national governing bodies pay the athletes differently from country to country though. So when you're an American you make $37,500 if you're winning gold. If you're from Germany which is where I'm from, you make about $25,000 and that is like to me horrendous when you put that into perspective to how much money the Olympics as an organization make. Uh, we had actually one German swimmer she won gold for us in, in Paris in 2024 and she went out and she said, "I get €20,000," so we obviously get paid in euros. "Get paid €20,000 for a lifetime dedicated to the sport representing my country at the highest level and winning gold." That just like doesn't even come close to what it costs to prepare yourself for the Olympics when it comes to training, travel, equipment, et cetera, et cetera. And, uh, what she said is like it would be more profitable for her to participate in Love Island where she would probably paid more than winning gold for her country. And that's the brutal reality. Most of the Olympians actually live, like, just around the poverty line, make, like, around $30,000 a year. There's, uh, the US Olympic Committee actually has contracts with, with companies like Home Depot to, to get jobs for Olympians. And so people work at Home Depot, work at the post office, and on the side train and prepare to go to the Olympics. Obviously, there's a few people, the Michael Phelps of the world, the Usain Bolts of the world, that are big enough to make good sponsorship money, but how many Olympians can you actually name amongst the 10,000 that are participating that actually do have big commercial value? It's very, very little, and so that's where I think the system is failing.

Max Martin
And it is not because the money is not there, it's because of the decision-making that these organization do in terms of where they set their priorities in terms of paying people.

Melanie Avalon
That makes sense too be- so I'm a big theater fan. I love going to theater, and so I go to a lot of, like, Cirque du Sol- Cirque du Soleil shows and stuff like that.

And I remember I went with somebody once and they were saying that, "Yeah, a lot of these people are..." 'Cause w- the thing that's always interesting to me about, like, Cirque du Soleil is they kind of, there's not, like, a, they don't tell the names of the people in it. It's just, like, they kind of rotate people out. And my friend was saying, "Yeah, it's a lot of, like, O- Olympians and, like, people training for the Olympics. Like, th- they can do this, you know?" Like, and I was like, "Olympians are, like, doing this on stage?" But that would make sense that they're, yeah, working at Home Depot and doing Cirque du Soleil.

Max Martin
Actually, fun fact, one of our board members has been the chairman of, of, of Cirque du Soleil.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, really? I love Cirque du Soleil. I would go, like, every night. It's the best.

Max Martin
I've never been, but I, I follow them on Instagram, watch a lot of their content there. It's amazing, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you should go. Oh, where are you from in Germany, by the way? We, I have family there.

Max Martin
I'm from Munich.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Do you know Fulda?

Max Martin
Fulda? Yes.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that's where my, yeah, my family lives. Or we have, like, an apartment there. So love Germany. Okay.

Also, the sports that you chose, so, like I said, I re-listened to... It was cool to re-listen to that interview on, from Joe Rogan, like, two years later. So at the time, there was, he was saying, I think Christian maybe was saying that they were planning on the three, the three that you guys have had now, so the weightlifting, the track, and the swimming. But then he also mentioned gymnastics and combat. So how has it evolved as far as, like, how did you choose the sports that you had in it? Yeah, how did that evolve? What, what, what do you plan for the future?

Max Martin
No, that's, that's a great question. So we then ultimately settled on those three because we wanted to settle on sports that have objectively measurable performance. In both gymnastics and combat, there's, it would be much more difficult to attribute the performance gains to enhancements than in the three sports that are measured. And so that's why we focused on these three sports because they have objectively measurable performance.

And the second thing as well is all of the events that we did were shorter than a minute. That was very important for us because the way that we positioned the games was not, like, for a TV product, but we built them for social media. Most of the content that we consume today is not because we sit down and watch live TV, but because we see the clips and the highlights and everything on social media. And so that really defined how we wanted to, to position the sports for the games themselves.

For the games, I think we really much like these three sports, but enhancements are relevant for, for literally anything. And so what we want to explore now more of, and we did last week in the Breakers event, which is the first of a new series where we have the ability now in a smaller fashion to venture into different sports. And so areas that I'm personally excited about is, like, for example, endurance events. What can you do in distance running? What can you do in triathlon? Et cetera, et cetera. And so that's, that's gonna be new sports with new athletes that we'll be venturing into in the future.

But then also beyond athletics, enhancements are relevant for much more than that. One thing, for example, an area that I'm excited about, and maybe we'll hear more about that in the future, is, for example, artists. When you go on tour, that's extremely taxing on the body as well. And while artists historically have resorted to other substances to help them with that, many artists today are very much focused on longevity and their health. And so how can, what can you do in there? Fun fact as well, another group of people that is very much enhanced is orchestra musicians. Orchestra musicians, they obviously don't take anabolic steroids, but they take beta blockers to help them with stage fright. And so independent of what you do, coming back to, like, the protocol design before, who you are as an individual and what you're trying to achieve, there's a certain protocol that can help you become the best at that or your best at that.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Here, I just had, uh, an epiphany.

So the event for, from what I remember from when I was, like, six at the Olympics, we went to gymnastics and we went to the equestrian, which I remember was so hot. Would there be enhanced animals?

Max Martin
Wow, interesting question. We never thought about that.

I don't know. Um, so there are enhanced animals, so there's actually a huge thing in horse racing. Horses get, um, get tested, and, uh, and it's a huge thing, but it's not something that we're particularly excited about or looking into. There has been a huge thing though of people giving, like, BPC and other substances to their pets. And so there's been a lot of stories that I saw from, like, animals or pets that had chronic pain, et cetera, and their owners have treated them with peptides that have reported back massive benefits for their pets. I think there's also, like, Paris Hilton and her dog, she took her dog in, in, into red light therapy, and her dog had, like, a much higher life, uh, or longer life than you would typically see for that breed.

Melanie Avalon
I've been, yeah, I've been talking about red light therapy on this show for years, and I can't tell you how many times people send me pictures of, like, their animals, like, just going to the red light devices and, like, taking naps, like, by them. They, they, yeah, the animals love, love the red light.

Okay, wait, a major question, 'cause I'm thinking about this 'cause I'm thinking about how hot I was when I was six at the equestrian, and also I was hot at the, at the games. So on this past Monday, I interviewed Bill Gifford. He, he was the co-author on Peter Attia's New York Times bestseller Outlive, and he has a new book called Hot Wired. And so we were talking all about how heat affects the body therapeutically with things like sauna and heat exposure, but he also talked about a lot in the book and on the show about how heat affects athletic performance. So he was saying, 'cause I told him I told him how hot it was outside at, at the games. He, he was curious why the games was not an indoor complex because he was saying how the heat actually, because of the central governor in our brain, actually limits our performance if it gets too hot. So would you guys consider doing it indoors next year? I'm selfishly asking 'cause I wanna go indoors. But also curious.

Max Martin
No, you're right. Obviously, the Vegas sun in May was, was absolutely brutal. I think we also, like, had experience from a weather perspective, we actually had a, had a much higher winds than they recorded, I don't know, in how many years leading up to the games. Like, there was the highest winds. We had to actually stop construction for, like, a certain period of time because it was too windy and too dangerous for the construction to go on.

So weather-wise, I think next year what we'll be doing is firstly be more at night. We actually thought that... The, the people came to the stadium much earlier than we thought. We thought we were gonna start with a few events, like warmup events, et cetera, not the, like, highlight events earlier, and then, but the, but the stadium was full immediately. But coming back to what you actually asked me about, which is the athletic performance. So for the athletes as well, it did make a, a, a slight difference, I would say. But I wouldn't attribute too much to it, and I can tell you why. Because the athletes in the warmup space, which was underneath the, the deck of the, the arena that we had, was air-conditioned. And the athletes when they went out, their actual exposure to the sun and the heat was rather limited. So it was just a couple of minutes long, and so for the athletes, they might have enjoyed it if it was a little bit colder. But from a performance perspective, also the coaches agreed that it shouldn't have that much of an impact on it because it was not as much, like, a longer, longer period of time. If you look at the Tour de France right now, it's brutally hot in France. There the athletes obviously being for five hours straight on the bike, they feel the heat much differently than an athlete who's out, you know, going to the track racing for roughly 10 seconds and, uh, and then being back, uh, downstairs where it's, where it's air-conditioned.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Okay, gotcha. That makes sense.

Also, just random question, having been there, one of the interesting moments was when there was, like, three or four false starts in a row. Is that common with events?

Max Martin
Well, that was, that was a few too many for it to be called common. Um, let's just put it like that.

Melanie Avalon
I was like, "This is a moment, we're gonna be here all day."

Max Martin
Yeah. That was, um, that was, that was interesting to see. Speaking to the athletes afterwards, some athletes told me they were doing, like, other athletes were doing false starts on purpose to play mind games. At the end of the day as well, yeah, yeah. Like, in competition people, and you know, like, they talk, they talk shit in advance. They talk shit to people, like, during the event. Like, it's very much a mind game thing as well. It's not just who has the best physiology and the best training going into it. It's all about where your head's at as well. That's what oftentimes, I mean, in every sport, separates the great from the greatest, is where your mindset's at.

And so that, that was one thing that the athletes told me. Um, but yeah, it was surprising to see how many false starts we had in, in, in, in some events.

Melanie Avalon
How did it actually compare what manifested? Is it, is it what you saw? Was it different from what you were thinking? Better than what you were thinking?

Yeah, how did it... What are your thoughts about from the initial idea?

Max Martin
I think it was spectacular. I think for me, obviously I'm highly biased, but this was the most beautiful sporting event I've ever been to. I mean, I cried in one of the first events already because for me it was so emotional with, like, all the years of hard work that went into this. But I think the vibe was great. I think the people loved it. Everyone that I've spoken to who's been there really had a great time.

I think we were able to bring sports that people are not normally care about to a global audience. I mean, we had more than, like, a billion impressions through the games, and had people, you know, jumping out of their seats for weightlifters that they've never heard of in their lives, what they've never watched as a sport before in their lives, and cheer for them in a fashion that was spectacular. I think what was also great is that it was not just the event per se, but there was programming around it. I think that made it for me personally very special. Overall, just putting the athletes front and center and, and giving them a stage to shine on, uh, which they've never had in that, in that way, I think was, was truly remarkable, and so I'm very, very proud of what we've actually been able to build with the first Enhanced Games.

Melanie Avalon
No, you, you definitely should be. And-

Max Martin
How did you enjoy the vibe?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I was about to say, from my experience, so, okay, I am so happy that I'm so happy they didn't tell us that it was outside until I was, like, on the plane on the way there, because I am not resilient. And if if I, if I had known, I, I might not have gone 'cause I'm, like, so terrified of the heat. I am so glad they didn't tell me, 'cause I had the best time.

It was mind-blowing. And this is a girl who doesn't even... Like, I don't, I don't watch sports. Like, The World Cup is happening right now. I don't know what's happening. Like, it was m- it was just incredible. Like, the energy, the seeing, like, what the human body is actually capable of. It was, yeah, it was really, really amazing. I, I was actually sitting at the beginning by Bode's family, and so, like, seeing, like, family members rooting for... I, I was like, "Whoa." I was like, "This is a whole thing." So yeah, I, I cannot recommend it enough. And yeah, I had the best time. And I know, I understand what you were saying about the events, like the highlight reels. Like, people just really see, like, the highlights and, like, in my reel that I made, it's like, you know, just, like, the highlight moments. But the whole thing was, yeah, incredible. And when you j-

Max Martin
I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. When you, like, jump- You, like, jumped from, like, the boot. I just saw you, like, jump and, like, to congrat- I was like, "Whoa, he's sprightly." Which by the way, aren't you, like, really, really young?

Like, really young?

Max Martin
That depends on what your perception is on young. I'm 29.

Melanie Avalon
29? Oh my goodness.

That's incredible. Wow. Wow. Did you... Okay, wow. Did, did... Is this what, is this the type is this the type of thing, like, growing up were you, like, always a, a go-getter like this? Like, did you see yourself doing this growing up?

Max Martin
I mean, like, doing this, I don't think anyone can foresee that they're hosting a mini Olympics where the athletes can take performance enhancements. That's not something certainly I knew of, like, 10 years ago that I wanna be doing this. But no, I think as a person I've always been very curious and very driven, and I think I always have been a person that wants to get stuff done and, and, and be exciting. And what I'm very excited about is, you know, like, having an impact.

And I think with, with what we're doing, what we've done for the athletes, what we've done now for thousands of consumers that are, you know, getting enhanced through our platform, we're having a real impact on people. I told you this before, like quickly, that previous company was in the Bitcoin mining space. That was very interesting, and we were, you know, at a, at the right time, at the right space where you could make a lot of cash. But at the end of the day, that doesn't really matter. And so what really makes the impact now for me is that we have a real impact on real people's lives through the work that we do every single day, which is just, like, phenomenal. And so that's what, that's what makes me so passionate about this because, like, having an impact and, and, and doing something that's good is really important to me.

Melanie Avalon
Well, to, to that point, because so up until this point, we've talked all about the games. It's not just the games.

So you have an entire, a broader v- part of Enhance that extends to all the people. So you guys have a, a telehealth, like, online with supplements and I'll tell you, so I was, I was really nervous, Max, because they... So like when they first reached out to me about attending, they were saying that we would be also endorsing the supplements, and I am, I'm, like, very... I have my own supplement line. I'm very, like, neurotic about what I put in my body. I'm like, I'm like, "I don't want fillers. I want, like, the highest quality." I'm really intense about what I... the ingredients. And I was like s- so I was just going on faith. I was like, "Oh, my goodness, I better, I better like these products because I'm gonna have to promote them." They're incredible. So I have in front of me right now, so I have the, you guys have Longer and you have Stronger, and, um, so, like, Longer is a longevity-related supplement, but it's all the things that I've... I've literally had, like, individual episodes on half of these ingredients. So it's like Urolithin A and NMN and creatine and quercetin and apigenin and spermidine and NAC, and then all these different vitamins, and there's no problematic fillers. And yeah, so that's great. There... And what I like, too, no proprietary blends 'cause proprietary blends, it's like what do you, you know, what's actually in there?

Max Martin
You have no idea what you're taking. Yeah .

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, you don't, yeah, don't know what you're taking. And then, like, with the Stronger, that's the, the recovery.

And so, by the way, speaking of, I love that you guys have... So you have a... Well, actually, before, before that, so these products and the focus of the products with what you're doing with Enhanced, is the focus... 'Cause this is like a dual, a dual business kind of, a symbiotic dual business. Is the focus the games? Is it the supplement line? Like, the business model, where, where is the focus there, and how did you develop these, the supplements?

Max Martin
Yeah. So we started initially just with the idea, and that's when, when Christian and Aaron were on, on Rogan, it was just about the games. It was not the intention to sell products at the time.

But, uh, it was in, it was in December 2024, um, Aaron was still working in the business. Um, I was speaking to him and I was telling him, "Aaron, we are learning so much about the work that we do with athletes." And getting enhanced is nothing new, by the way, right? Like, all of Hollywood is enhanced. You look at top executives around the world, they're enhanced. People with the disposable income to take care of themselves better are enhanced. And so the question was not like... Well, the question becomes why are just the few elite enhanced, and why is it not accessible to everyone? It's not the substances that are particularly that expensive. It's the access to the information for personalized care that is so expensive. Because there's no platform where you can, like, get those personalized protocols to help you become an enhanced, such best version of yourself. And so with all the work that we're doing with the athletes, we, like, there's so much that we learn, and we wanna make those learnings accessible to the people and share also the knowledge of all of the people that are on medical commission, on our scientific commission, and, and therefore have started to build out a consumer business that makes those enhancements or democratizes the access, let's say better, to those enhancements.

And so that's why we started with, with the idea of building out a consumer business by ourselves. And you said that right, we have OTC supplements, which are both the Longer and Stronger, but then also on a prescription side, we have a variety of different products that we offer, ranging from hormone replacement therapy for women, TRT for men, certain longevity drugs like NAD, to also approved peptides. And so that's what we, we wanted to create for people, a safe, supervised pathway to enhancement with substances that are compounded in the US and prescribed to people by licensed physicians rather than people, you know, having to go out on themselves and order from, from websites where they don't necessarily know what, where it's coming from. It's mostly coming from outside the US. You know this, all of this about the peptide space, mislabeled substances, et cetera, et cetera. And so that's why we decided to, to build it.

And the ambition that we have for ourselves is to provide the people with the best quality of products we can possibly do. And so, like, you were calling out for Longer, for example, so Longer are people to take, uh, like, as a, as a daily supplementation for longevity. These are all the ingredients in there, you know them. But, like, for Urolithin A, I think what another supplier is offering, like, half of the dose per day. For us in Longer, it's one gram a day. Some other suppliers give you, like, half a gram of Urolithin A per day at, like, the same price point that we offer Longer at.

Max Martin
So it's not just, like, double the dosage of Urolithin A in itself per day, but, like, 20 other incredible ingredients that you get on top of it. So the quality of the product plus the prime point, price point that it's at, I think is spectacular, in similar fashion for, for Stronger, too.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Honestly, like, I'm just looking at Longer and, like, I know the price point of like, the price of e- these individuals would be, you know, would be more almost than the blend of all of them together.

Max Martin
If you buy them s- like, if you buy them from separate suppliers on an individual basis, you pay much more.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Like, one, like, one would be even more than probably the whole, this bag.

Max Martin
Yeah, that's what I mean. So for if you buy just, like, a Urolithin A supplement- Or NMN, like you get for youth and you get half the dosage for the same price if you get Longer. So it's, it's literally like half the price for just that substance plus everything else in it.

Melanie Avalon
That's incredible. Do you use both Longer and Stronger?

Max Martin
I take both, yeah. I take Longer m- in the morning with my breakfast, and I take Stronger around 45 minutes before I work out.

And so Stronger is not just like good for recovery, but it's also great for like working out. It has lots of like beta alanine in it and, and like a lot of other substances that help with like blood flow and everything when you go to the gym. And so I use it as well as a pre-workout and with the PKT that is in there as well, like I, I just get more out of my trainings and it helps me to get more into... It sounds very marketing now, the way that I talk about it, but I mean, I, I love those products, you know? It's just, it's just, it's just great for me.

Melanie Avalon
And what about, so with Stronger you guys have a promise where if people don't beat... Okay, if, if beat your lift in 90 days or we refund you, and you say that people can choose any personal, personal lift, and if they can't beat it in 90 days, you'll refund them. How do you, how do you track that?

Max Martin
Well, we track that on an individual basis with our consumers. Thus far there hasn't been anyone coming back to us and, and, and claiming that they haven't been able to reach their goals, but it's gonna change.

Now everyone who's listening to the show is gonna come back to us and want their money back.

Melanie Avalon
No, no, no. That's, that's, that's absolutely amazing.

And what do you think the future... You mentioned peptides. Yeah, what do you think the future is gonna be on all of this, like with regulation and access to things? It looks, I mean, I feel like there's so many more resources now for people to get access. Do you think it's gonna continue that way? Or how are things looking?

Max Martin
Oh, I think absolutely. Because I just conceptually ask my question, not like, well, how does the next year look like? But just ask yourself the question, in 100 years from now, are we gonna be more enhanced as a society or not? And so for me, the answer is a clear yes.

And so it's not a question for me of whether, but just when. And I think what we're seeing the regulator do right now, and we have the PCAF hearing coming up on seven peptides next week, is they're noticing a desire and a demand from the Americans to get access to those enhancements. I think what we're seeing as well is people being, on a demographic scale, much more mindful about their health at a very earlier stage in their life. If I just look at Gen Z, for example, like compared to, to my generation, people go out way less, they drink less, they smoke less. People in their 40s start thinking about their health like people used to do just when they got 60. And so I think we're becoming, because of all of the easier access that we have through the internet, through social media to, to information about how to take care of ourselves, people are adapting that. And so, you know, performance medicine and proactive healthcare where people try to prevent diseases, uh, rather than treating them once they happen, is something that we can clearly see growing. And, uh, coming back to the peptide space, I think, you know, the regulator is noticing that millions of Americans are buying products that come from Mexico and China that are unsafe to take because you don't know if there's quality control of what you're actually taking without the right medical supervision, trying to take an approach to making those substances that we know work more safe to Americans. And so I'm very excited about that. I actually published a piece, uh, on Substack yesterday on my thoughts on the hearings next week. I'm gonna be in Washington next week as well for them, trying to, to do everything that I can to, to contribute in a positive fashion to it. But I'm very excited about the outlook of that industry overall.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, wow. That's super timely with next week. So it's, it's ironic because, like you said, you, you captured the spirit of, of our time. People are more interested in health, longevity, all the things.

We have so much access to information. Now there's finally transparency and, you know, getting access to things that can help with like, you know, these supplements and stuff like that, and yet we've also been stuck in this health epidemic for so long, like the obesity epidemic. And so it's this interesting dichotomy of, of those two different things. I do think that... How do you feel about GLP-1 agonists? I do think those have kind of broken a lot of Americans out of being stuck in a, like a disease state from our, our diet just by making people, you know, eat less. And so it kind of, it can be like a gateway to things, but, um, yeah, how, how do you feel about that wave, the GLP-1s?

Max Martin
So I think it's been absolutely incredible. Like it's had life-changing impacts on millions of Americans, and I'm so glad it did.

People, particularly weight loss is, is for some people just so difficult. And, uh, I've been speaking to an incredible athlete earlier this week who was vouching like all for discipline and a hardcore mindset. And like, yes, for some people that works, but like the beauty of society is advancing and finding tools that help us make things also easier at times. And so I also take GLP-1s. I take them to help me with my appetite regulation. I microdose them. I think it's absolutely incredible, and it helps me just become more mindful about what I put into my body and helps me deal with it much better. And so I think even for like on a, on a microdosing perspective, not just for like o- severely obese people to help them, you know, like lose weight because that in itself carries so much , you know, risk, I think it's been absolutely incredible. And I think, yes, it is a gateway into, into a better perspective of what drugs can do for your health. And so I think if you are, you know, if you come from, from overweight and you lose weight and then the next thing is how, what else can I do like now? How can I build more muscle mass? How can I become healthier even beyond just having lost weight? How can I prepare myself better after having had that first experience of how, how drugs can be life-changing in a positive way to your body and physiology?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I'm thinking about it more now in real time. It's kind of analogous a little bit to the perception with the games because I think a vibe that I get from people I've talked to or what I see, especially like mainstream media responding, I don't know if it's like jealousy. It's like I think when people see people doing things that helps them become, you know, way better, so whether it's like enhancing them- themselves for physical performance or taking a GLP-1 that helps them lose weight, whatever it is, if it's like an external substance that helps them do that as a gateway or as like a, an actual means, when other people aren't doing it but they have the same goals, like they wanna perform or they wanna lose weight, but for whatever reason they're not engaging in those substances, I think they then They attack the other people. Like, that, that, that's what I've seen.

Like, 'cause when the GLP-1s started becoming popular, we were getting questions all the time on my other show, The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, and people were saying like, "Oh, that's like the easy way out," or, you know, "That's... You, you should do it through diet and mindset." I'm like, why? Like, pe- it's helping people. Like, it's the thing they need. And so I, I just, I just wonder how much of it comes from people's ego. Like, people feel threatened by other people succeeding in a way.

Max Martin
Oh, they do big time, and I can certainly attest to that. I mean, what we've just seen in terms of negative backlash from the sporting world, uh, not just on us, but like we, we as an organization are obviously challenging organizations that have been around for decades, but like just the backlash that our athletes have received is astronomical.

Astronomical. Like, people that have dedicated their lifetime to representing their countries on the highest stages received like, for example, one of our swimmers, his name is Mario, he's German as well, he received $800 a month in, in support from the swim federation that didn't even cover his insurance costs. And then we expect him to travel around the world, represent our country, and, and swim at the highest level, and that's the support that they're getting. The guy's winning medal for us, and then he decides to do something for himself for the first time. Also, all the athletes that were getting enhanced, we required them to retire from traditional sports because we are very much against cheating. And so like they retired from the sport, then they joined us, and then the backlash that they've received afterwards was insane. And so I think people are sometimes s- it's a little bit of a... I personally think not that nice of a quality that we have as humans is that jealousy aspect, and just if someone is getting out of the comfort zone that we personally define for ourselves, we see someone doing something that we don't have the internal motivation to do or the drive to do, and seeing them thriving on it, rather than being supportive, many of us are still very jealous of it and negative of it because we don't, we can't get ourselves to do it even though we would have the access to the same tools, and we decide rather to hate than to support. I think that's very sad. Yeah. That's my view on it.

Melanie Avalon
I've, I've seen it so much and, and what's really sad about it too is that it- it's jealousy but then it masks as like virtue or, you know, that they're taking the high road and, and but to me I'm like I sh- I, I've said it so casually but like I've had quite a... talked with quite a few at- other athletes and the vibe has been like, "Oh, the, you know, the Enhanced Games, like, that's a joke," or like, "It's, it's not good for sports world," and I'm like, I feel like these people are just jealous, honestly. Like, I think that's what's going on here.

Max Martin
No, but many of them are, you know? Like, without getting into names, but like I have people that have, you know, Olympic gold medals that are talking in the press bad about us and then they're reaching out to me on Instagram trying to get a spot in the games, you know? So it's very, a very double-edged sword or double s- double, double-sided coin and, and it's just interesting to see that, you know? We'd never go out and disclose it because we're not that kind of people, but it's very interesting.

Or also like federations, you know? I have people from the, the World Anti-Doping Agency is obviously heavily against what we're doing, but like some of their highest ranking members are like in talks with us and tell us that what we're doing is the right way of doing it. So it's, it's, it's crazy to see that.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. Yeah. And when you say, when you say the athletes retired, does that mean forever? Like, so they're ne- they can never go back to traditional sports, or can they if they-

Max Martin
So interesting, right? Because Conor McGregor, for example, retired, got enhanced and came back from sports. Serena Williams retired, has been obviously the face of ROW, and now came back and played at the, at, at Wimbledon. I think the athletes that have joined us, they've made their peace with their previous parts of their career and they've looked at this as a next chapter of their career. And so I don't think that any of them have high aspirations or so of returning to the games.

We actually had one swimmer as well, his name is Hunter Armstrong, and Hunter has been an incredible athlete. He chose not to enhance because he was, he was actually working three job to try to finance his training to go to the Olympics in LA. He's American. His sponsors... He was a p- he was a world record holder and he's like in his mid-20s, so he's like in his absolute prime. His sponsors have dropped him for no reason, just because of a strategic new alignment of where that company was going. He didn't receive enough funding from, from the existing federations that he was a part of, and so he saw the Enhanced Games as a way to, to make a living to finance his road to the Olympics because the current system has failed him as a record holder, like as a previous world record holder just like two years ago. Um, but Hunter has told me, "You know, like Max, it was, it was better to swim at the Enhanced Games than it was to swim at an Olympic final." And so like we've been able to create something so beautiful for the athletes that I think, you know, like they, they think of it as not as a switching between A and B. I have nothing against them and I support them fully in it, but I think most of the athletes have come to us see this as, as the next phase of their career and stages of life.

Melanie Avalon
I was gonna ask about that because not everybody was enhanced at the Enhanced Games. What percent were not enhanced?

Max Martin
So we had 4 athletes of the 42 that were not enhanced. So say a little bit less than 10%.

Melanie Avalon
And were they all doing it for that reason, that they are... they wanna go to the Olympics still? Or were they... Yeah. Was, was that the reason?

Max Martin
Different reasons. Uh, for some of them they were just like, you know, when it comes to enhancements it's not just substances. It's also access to training, access to nutrition. It's sleeping in a bed. Like in Paris in '24, the athletes in the athlete village were sleeping on cardboard beds. Our swimmers are like 6'7", their feet are hanging off the bed. It's like a single bed and these guys don't fit in it. Some of the weightlifting stories from, from the athlete village, every person gets a preset like amount of food. So when you're like a, you know, 300-pound weightlifter, you get the same food as the 100-pound gymnast. So like it's crazy.

And so where does enhancement even start? So for example, one of our, our sprinters she, she was part of our training camp. She had... Uh, we had a four-month training camp in Abu Dhabi leading up to the game. She had all the same medical coverage. She got a recommended protocol, et cetera. But ultimately she chose not to take any enhancements because she wanted to, for herself, figure out what she could do without enhancements. And that's perfectly fine too.

And so, so monetary reasons, of course, were, were part for many of them. I mean, Hunter came to us to, to make money to finance his road to the Olympics 28 in LA. And then Fred, Fred Curley, he's he's one of our biggest names in sprinting. Fred was interesting. He was, wanted to get enhanced, and didn't wanna get enhanced, and wanted to get enhanced, and didn't wanna get enhanced. I think Fred, at the end of the day, i- is a great athlete. He's now, he's now getting enhanced because he also just wants to stay with us for the long term. It's, it's been different motivations and different rationales for different athletes.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. And, and there were awards for... What were the awards, so for breaking world record versus breaking-

Max Martin
Oh yeah, sorry, we never got to that, on how the athletes got compensated. So the athletes got compensated in three buckets, and the total prize money that they could win was $25 million. It was every athlete that went into it, so we have some athletes that have multi-year contracts with us that are getting, like, monthly stipends from us. Others just received appearance fees.

There was... There's, no, just one, um, that just received an appearance fee for showing up at the games. And then at the games, the prize money was $500,000 per event. And of that $500,000 prize money per event, the winner would make 250,000. And so if you compare that with the 37.500 that you get for an Olympic gold medal in the US, that's day and night difference. And then for world records, we would pay 250,000 as well, but we would pay a million dollars for the world record in the 100 meter sprint on the track and the 50 meter freestyle in the pool. That, that, that is life-changing amounts of money. So Christian Golomyi, who broke the world record, he broke the record in the 50 freestyle, so he got a million dollars paid from that, and he also swam in two events, and he won both of those event. 250,000 for one event, prize money, 250,000 for the other, plus the million dollars. Christian made one and a half million that night.

And if you compare that with Christian's 14-year professional career in swimming, where he went for four times to the Olympics and, uh, was constantly in the top 10 in the sport, he made roughly $200,000 in those 14 years. And at the night of the Enhanced Games, he made a million and a half, and he made another million because he broke the record already in 2025. So Christian made two and a half million from being an Enhanced Games athlete over the past, say, 18 months. That's insane. For a swimmer, this is unheard of. Unheard of.

Melanie Avalon
Was he working at Home Depot before?

Max Martin
Christian was doing multiple things. I don't know if he was working at Home Depot, but he was certainly doing different things, and yeah.

Melanie Avalon
Nothing against Home Depot. You know what's funny?

'Cause there's, like, there's this whole, like, vibe out there, like women go to Home Depot to, like, find a man. Now, now, you know, there's, like, Olympians there, so...

Max Martin
There's Olympians there. There's very very talented athletes in Home Depot.

Melanie Avalon
Why were those two events selected to, for one million? Are they, why are they special?

Max Martin
It's a good question, because they have special commercial value. People are more interested in the 50 meter freestyle than they are in the 50 breast. It's just un- It's just the, the reality. People are more interested in the 100 meters on the track than they are in weightlifting. And at the end of the day, what we've been very transparent and honest about is that we need to make this a commercial success, otherwise we're not gonna be able to pay the athletes.

And the athletes, you know what? They understand that, because they understand that the money just doesn't fall from the sky, and at the end of the day, sports is entertainment, and that's a business. Just like the NBA is a business, the NFL is a business, only if we can make the games a commercial success, we will be able to pay our athletes well. And I'm just so excited that we've been able to pay all of our athletes and not had them not get paid. There's other sporting ventures, you know, for example, Grand Slam Track, they set out and they wanted to do four events. They wanted to start paying athletes better. They, they, for the four events that they planned, they came through on three. The fourth one, they had to cancel it because they couldn't make it work commercially, and the athletes are still owed money. The International Swim League from, from a few years ago still to this date owes athletes money. And so our athletes actually very much see how they also fit into a bigger picture. Our athletes are, like, huge fans of our product. They love endorsing the product for two reasons. A, because they know that the products are great, and they love taking the product, and they've seen the impact in how it changed their lives. But also, two, because they know it fuels the bigger engine of Enhance, and the more money we can make as an organization overall, the more we can invest in sports.

Melanie Avalon
That's incredible. And didn't you guys up the prize money for next year?

Max Martin
We did. We did for that 100 meter sprint on the track. We upped the prize money for the world record to $10 million.

Melanie Avalon
Whoa. It's, it's funny 'cause I just, like, we, we touched on it briefly, but you know, there's a lot of mainstream media, for whatever reasons, are, you know, have been a little bit negative, and I was like, this... Well, I was like, clearly they're doing fine because they just upped the prize money, like, massively, so clearly things are going well.

Hope- presumably.

Max Martin
No, I think with, uh, with that, I hope we'll be able to attract a lot of track talent and make the, the next track race a very, very exciting one to watch.

Melanie Avalon
When I listened to the Rogan interview last night, he was saying that you guys had funding for, like, three years. Is that still the case, or how is that, how is that going?

Like, the future of the games ongoing?

Max Martin
No, the future of the games, I think what we'll see is we definitely love the model of the games and the way that it was, and we definitely wanna do more events, um, in the Breaker style like we did last week. And, uh, because we're listed-- I don't know if you know this, we're listed on the New York Stock Exchange, the company, so I can't disclose more than we've disclosed to the market on that, but that's kind of how we're thinking about, about the future of sports.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. Yes. Congrats on that, and I know nothing about the stock exchange, so I understand. I understand what I don't understand, which is the, I can't understand.

And what was the hardest, what was the hardest thing? Did you have any, like, last minute crisis, crises, like day of?

Max Martin
Oh, there were a million crises.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. What was the worst?

Max Martin
Uh, the worst was a war breaking out in Abu Dhabi during the training camp. That was horrible. Um, we had all of our athletes there. We've invested millions into the healthcare setup of the athletes, so all of the enhanced medical program cost us, uh, more than $5 million for 42 athletes. So this is more than $100,000 per athlete that we invested in, in their healthcare in preparation for the games. And we had everyone there, and then you learn that, you know, the country's at war. Because it gets caught in crossfires between the US and Iran, and you have your athletes on the ground there, and yeah, it's not looking rosy. So that was a big crisis that we had to overcome.

And then I talked about it before, we had like, I think three days prior, the winds were so much, so strong that we had to stop construction. Like it was, it was crazy. Thank God we had built-in buffer, uh, to work around it, and at the end of the day, we still got everything done in time. Putting on an event of that scale brings a lot of challenges, for sure.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I, I cannot even imagine. And one of the big draws for me, again, 'cause I was coming from like not being a sports person historically, but you had The Killers at the at the end, which is my favorite event.

Were they fans of the games? Do they watch the games?

Max Martin
I actually... The honest answer is, I don't know.

Melanie Avalon
Find out.

Max Martin
No, because after the games, I went to the concert and then we, we did like a little meet-and-greet for some people, but I went directly to the, to speak to our athletes and then go into the post-games press conference. So I actually haven't touched base with them since, but from what I've been hearing secondhand is that they very much enjoyed it.

Melanie Avalon
They're my favorite band ever, so seeing them live was really, really special.

Max Martin
I love them. That's amazing. Yeah, I love them too. They're, they're fucking awesome.

Melanie Avalon
No, absolutely. Absolutely love them. Okay, anything else you wanna share with listeners about the future of the games or what people should know, misconceptions, all the things?

Max Martin
I think we covered a very much good ground. I think one thing that I just wanna note is as well, that the route that we've taken is that every substance that the athletes were allowed to take on the medical program was, was FDA-regulated substances.

Melanie Avalon
Oh yeah, I was gonna ask about that.

Max Martin
Yeah. So everything, um, was FDA-regulated. We wanted to do the approach that like you don't need to experiment. Everything that is out there and regulated can help you become the best version of yourselves, and this is also how we've built our consumer business.

What we're selling to people is only, you know, FDA-regulated substances that can be prescribed and compounded in the US for the business. And then I think that's also, like for us, being, uh, listed on the New York Stock Exchange is such an important, big thing because we think of Enhanced really as a movement. It's much more than just sports. Enhancements are very relevant for anyone, and we didn't want to, you know, go public as a company and become investible at a later point in time, but we wanted to take people on the journey. And so now, you know, we have our fans and, and, uh, even some of our competitors. I was speaking with one of our competitors earlier today in the telehealth space because we love to exchange ideas, and he's like, "I'm a huge shareholder in Enhanced," because he's also so bullish about what we're doing. And so like we really wanted to make, like go public and make this a public company of the people so that they can have part in, in, in our financial success as well.

Melanie Avalon
Amazing. And yeah, so, so for the event next year, any teasers about what that will look like? Like Vegas again, same, same events, or is it evo- evolving, changing a lot?

Max Martin
I think it's going to be evolving a little bit. I think what we'll be also trying to do is to expand event horizon and make it more participatable for people.

I think what I'd love to see is, you know, like a retired, for example, NFL running back run a 40-yard dash after getting enhanced for like six months and, and get more out of the, out of the stadium that we're building.

Melanie Avalon
Will people be able to attend? 'Cause it was invite-only this year.

Max Martin
Yeah, it was invite-only this year. I think we're thinking about it. We're thinking about it for sure. We, we really were very intentional with who we invited because we wanted to maximize our reach.

At the end of the day, we produced it to be a digital-first product. The live experience was absolutely awesome, but we wanted it to really be produced for digital because if you look at just the billions of impressions that we had versus the, the few thousand people that were there in person, that's really what we wanted to optimize for. But definitely considering to make it, you know, um, or, or consider a route that's not just invite-only.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Well, it was such an honor to attend, and yeah, listeners, cannot recommend it enough. And so if listeners would like to get these supplements, so actually, well, you like, like we mentioned, you can get... There's telehealth, there's access to compounds that require res- prescriptions, and then there's also these supplements, Longer and Stronger. And like I said, Longer, friends, it's all these ingredients I've been talking about for so long all in one package, no problematic fillers. Definitely go get it now.

And you can get 25% off, so go to melanieavalon.com/enhanced. Use the coupon code Melanie, and that will give you 25% discount on all Enhanced products. It's a one-time code, and it will work on subscriptions too, so if you wanna stack that, definitely, definitely do that. Yeah. Max, thank you so much. I'm, I'm blown away by what you're doing. It's absolutely incredible, and it's, it's such a paradigm shift that I think is so needed. I mean, just to like briefly recap, it's we're getting to see the true human potential, like what the human body can do. We're finally supporting and, you know, providing financial support and well-deserved rewards for these athletes, and it's just challenging. It just has so many esoteric questions about, you know, what is... Like why do we judge certain things? What... In the pursuit of longevity or health or fitness, like why... Yeah, why do we judge certain things? And you're completely changing that paradigm, so cannot thank you enough for what you're doing. It's incredible.

Max Martin
Thank you. That's very, very kind of you to say, and, uh, and I truly appreciate that you, you know, like spent some time with our products as well, and like you, you genuinely believe that this is a good product. I really appreciate it, and thank you for having me on the show.

It's, it's, it's great to be a guest of yours. Thank you so much.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you. So one very last quick question, and it's, I ask every single guest this, and it's just because I am so obsessed with mindset. So what is something that you're grateful for?

Max Martin
I think I'm just very grateful to be in a position to pursue something that I'm truly passionate about and throw myself into it and, and, and finding that purpose.

Melanie Avalon
Amazing. Well, thank you, Max. You are the best. Can't wait for the games next year, and yeah, just thank you for all that you do.

Max Martin
Thank you so much for having me.

Melanie Avalon
Bye.

Max Martin
Bye.

Melanie Avalon
Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What, When, Why, as well as my supplement line, Avalonex.

Please visit melanieavalon.com to learn more about today's guest, and always feel free to contact me at contact@melanieavalon.com. And always remember, you got this.